


Tales from Space City 3 -- zine

by HelenPatrick



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M, Zine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:17:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenPatrick/pseuds/HelenPatrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Online archive for the third volume of the Blake's 7 printzine "Tales from Space City". Stories will be added in stages, as and when I get time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. cover and front matter

# **Tales from Space City 3**

  


This zine contains explicit sexual material, and is not for sale to anyone under the age of 18. Please do not buy the zine if such material offends you.

The contents of this zine are available on the Web

* * *

Contents

Someone to watch your back| Belatrix Carter| 1  
---|---|---  
Backup disk| Executrix| 11  
Self-inflating...| Tom Forsyth| 17  
Natural habitat| Belatrix Carter| 18  
On web vs zines| Helen Patrick| 26  
Breakup value| Executrix| 27  
My love is like a purple, purple prose| Tom Forsyth| 32  
Living doll| Predatrix| 33  
Mindswap| Manna| 51  
Closing the file| AnnaS| 62  
Party peace| Sally Manton| 67  
The past is an open book| Sally Manton| 74  
Planet names| Tom Forsyth| 76  
Editorial| Helen Patrick|   
  
Front cover art: Willa Shakespeare  
Other art: Helen Patrick and Photoshop

This amateur fanzine is copyright December 2002 to the writers and artists and Helen Patrick. It may not be reproduced in any form, including electronically, without the explicit written permission of the authors, artists and editor. It is understood that only original material is covered by this copyright and no attempt is made to supersede any copyright held by Terry Nation's estate, the BBC or any other holder of copyright on Blake's 7 material.

 _Technical details:_  
Over 33,000 words of non-editorial text  
The layout was done in Word Pro 2000.  
Main text: 10 point Times New Roman.  
Other text: Arial, Times New Roman, Papyrus.  
Printed as a folded letter booklet.

Corrections and comments are welcomed at helen.patrick@waveney.org

* * *

Editorial

Yes, it's a different format.

I don't have the job with the access to cheap copying any more. In fact, I'm not even on the same continent any more. On the other hand, I have ample free time...

I'm doing this zine because I think that non-Netizens are people too. Blake's 7 still supports several wonderful print zines (go and buy them, go and write things for them, _please_ ), but there's a growing trend for authors to put their stuff straight onto the web. That's great for people who have free or cheap web access, because it gives them affordable access to a lot of fiction. It's not so great for people who don't have web access at all, or only have censored access, or have to pay high metered rates for access. There are quite a few people in that situation. This zine is an attempt to make things available to both groups. In this issue, everything other than the short fillers is available from the Library at http://www.hermit.org/blakes7/Library/SrchReq.cgi

And the front cover? This is the first issue since the list changed name. The Mistress of Ceremonies from the Big Wheel welcomes you to Freedom City...

Helen Patrick, December 2002

 _Submission guidelines:_

I never thought I'd need to put these in the zine, but then I got submission queries from non-list members after the first volume. Yes, I will consider stories from outside the list, although I give priority to list members.

The three important ones are:  


\- no trib copies are given
  


\- electronic submissions only
  


\- you must be willing to have the story made available in ezine format for download from the Net should the paper zine go out of print
  
No trib copies, because I do not put any restriction on publishing the story on the web. However, please tell me if it has ever been on the web, or if you intend to place it on the web within a year, as I usually note in the zine what proportion of the zine is webbed at the time of publication. If you do want trib copies, there's a partial listing of zines seeking submissions at http://www.hermit.org/blakes7/Fanzines/wanted.html You must tell the editor if you have ever made the story available on the Net, as many cannot accept such material. 


	2. Someone To Watch Your Back, by  Belatrix Carter

# Someone To Watch Your Back  
Belatrix Carter

 _  
Belatrix posted this to the list, inspiring Executrix to write Backup Disk in response. Two completely different views of the same incident...   
_

  


At first, I'm not sure he's even aware that I'm here. He doesn't move at all, just stays bent over his circuit board in an attitude of intense concentration. He gets like that, sometimes: so absorbed in his work that it's like nothing else exists for him. I envy him that, a little. There are times when I'd like to be able to tune out the universe.

At any rate, I stand there for a moment, undecided whether to interrupt him or just quietly turn around and leave the computer bay. But before I can make up my mind, he turns his head and looks at me. He winces slightly as he does so and absently rubs his hand against his neck.

I feel a stab of sympathy. Especially as he's only altering these circuits because I asked him to, and here I've come down to heap still more work on him.

"Have you been down here all day?" I ask. Come to think of it, I don't recall having seen him since lunch...

"Yes. This is taking rather longer than I expected." Oddly enough, there's no accusation in his voice. "Did you want something?"

"I was going to ask you to run some calibrations on the sensors, but I think it can wait until tomorrow. You look worn out."

He simply smiles a little and says, "I'm so glad you are concerned for my welfare. As it happens, for once I agree with you."

"You mean you _are_ worn out?"

"I mean the sensors can wait until tomorrow." He turns back to his work bench, wincing a little again as he does so.

"It's not good for your back, sitting hunched over like that." Why couldn't we have stumbled on a super alien spaceship equipped with ergonomic chairs?

He merely gives me a dismissive grunt, but it's quite clear that it's bothering him. Without really stopping to think about it, I step up behind his chair and begin massaging his shoulders.

He makes a little noise of surprise and almost starts to pull away, but after a moment he lets himself relax into it. I continue to knead him, slipping my hands under the collar of his tunic to rub at the back of his neck. His flesh is warm and smooth, and very pleasant to my touch. He rolls his head a little and moans.

I feel a wonderful sense of contentment stealing over me. All the fighting, all the strife, all of it suddenly seems worth it, just for this one intimate moment of peace.

I lean in a little, digging into his muscles, and find myself breathing in the warm, masculine scent of him. Peaceful contentment gives way to a feeling of wistfulness. I fantasise for a moment about what it might be like to let my hands roam lower, to stroke his chest and tease at his nipples and pull him to me close...

Well, I'm sure his reaction to _that_ would pretty well ruin the mood. So I concentrate on the back rub, on this particular brand of pleasure that he'll actually allow me to give him. Poor man, his muscles are terribly tight: not just the neck and shoulders, from the feel of things, but his whole back. What he needs is a proper lying-down massage. Without even really thinking about it, I find myself telling him so.

He pulls away and turns to face me. "Are you offering?"

Well, I don't know that I _was_ intending to offer... Not that I wouldn't be delighted to. Probably _too_ delighted.

"Well, I _have_ been told my technique is quite good," I hear myself say.

He stares at me for a moment with that quietly appraising look of his, and finally says, "All right."

And so I find myself, a few minutes later, in Avon's cabin with a bottle of massage oil in my hands and a shirtless Avon face-down on the bed in front of me. It's a good thing I am a stalwart rebel leader, strong of will and stout of heart, because this would be far too much temptation for any lesser man.

And I'll just keep right on telling myself that, because I'm here to help my computer tech with his back problems, not to make a pass at a man who's never given me any sign of interest and would probably make me very, very much regret trying anything he didn't want me to.

I tip some oil out onto my hands and get to work.

My technique is good, even if it might be immodest of me to say so. I have fragmented memories of learning, long ago, from an old lover: a man with beautiful hands and a slow, dazzling smile. For a moment, I find myself in the distant past again, my hands on his sturdy brown back as he offers suggestions on my technique, and I bend, briefly, to kiss the nape of his neck in grateful acknowledgement. The memories come like this, sometimes, vivid and overwhelming.

Then, abruptly, I'm back in the present, and it's Avon beneath me, Avon's pale flesh yielding itself under my kneading hands. Avon lying here, his eyes closed, his body bonelessly relaxed, his back turned to me in a complete and touching trust. A sweet, painful mixture of tenderness and lust rises in me suddenly, and I feel an incredible desire to bend down—just a few fatal inches—and kiss the top of his head. I barely stop myself in time.

Blindly, I continue with the massage, trying to make my touch as impersonal as possible, trying to think of the body below me as so much anonymous flesh, not as belonging to the man who challenges me on the flight deck, who gazes at me sometimes with those fathomless dark eyes and leaves me consumed to know what he's thinking, who insults me and then smiles at me with that same beautifully formed mouth...

Obviously this isn't working. I'm only becoming more and more painfully aroused. Damn, if only Avon would stop making those little pleasure-noises...

All right. Enough of this. Just another couple of minutes—a sheer indulgence, I admit, because no matter how tormented this is making me, I still don't want to stop, knowing that I'll probably never have the chance to touch him again. Just another couple of minutes, and I'll declare the massage done with and go back to my cabin and masturbate until I explode.

Striving for control, I reach clumsily for the bottle of massage oil, slicking one last coating onto my hands. All right, here we go, one final deep dig at those neck muscles to work out the last of the kinks, and I can make a strategic retreat.

I slide my oil-covered hands onto his shoulders... And somehow, I slip. Oily hands skid right off Avon's skin as I overbalance and pitch forward, catching myself against the mattress with my hands, and ending up with my lower body pressed firmly against Avon's.

And my erection pressed firmly— _very_ firmly—into his thigh. _Damn_.

He raises his shoulders and whips his head around as I regain my balance and pull back from him. Surprise flashes across his face, quickly replaced with a scowl. "If this is all some clumsy attempt at a seduction, Blake, I shall be most annoyed."

It's hard to tell whether he's more irritated by the idea that I'd attempt to seduce him, or at my supposed clumsiness, but it's quite clear that the contempt in his voice is aimed at both. I find myself growing a little angry at the implication: damn it, I _wouldn't_ set out to seduce him, but if I _had_ , I'd have done a proper job of it.

"I came here with the intention of giving you a massage. Nothing more than that." But, of course, the evidence suggests otherwise, doesn't it? So, reluctantly, I add, "I admit, my thoughts might have become a bit impure..."

"Demonstrably." His voice is dryly mocking.

"If I've made you uncomfortable, Avon, I apologise."

"Uncomfortable? It turns out I have been lying half-naked on a bed while a man with a..." He casts a significant glance at the offending portion of my anatomy. "...substantial erection... fondles me over half my body. What possible reason could I have for being uncomfortable?"

"Some people enjoy it," I say, a little too defensively.

"Doubtless. But I strongly suspect that most of them are women."

"I said I'm sorry, Avon. What else do you want?"

"Well, now, a little honesty might be nice."

"Honesty? You want honesty?" My voices rises, my sexual frustration rapidly being replaced by frustration of a somewhat different sort. "All right, then. The _honest_ truth is that, as you are now doubtless aware—assuming you hadn't already long since figured it out—I am a homosexual. Queer as a three-credit note. And, yes, I am attracted to you. And I came here to give you a back rub. Period."

"Thank you," he says mildly. For the honesty, I presume, not for the back rub.

Well, I knew this was a terrible idea when I started, didn't I? I feel as disgusted with myself as I do with him. "And now that I've thoroughly embarrassed both of us..." I begin to get up from the bed, hoping—probably in vain, I know—that we'll be just able to forget about this tomorrow.

"I'm not embarrassed. I _am_ wondering why you seem to be leaving without finishing what you ostensibly came here to do."

I freeze in mid-movement. "You want me to continue?" I can hear the incredulity in my own voice. "I thought you didn't like being fondled by a man with a 'substantial erection'."

"I have not yet decided whether I like it or not. It is a... novel experience for me."

For possibly the first time ever, Avon has effectively succeeded in rendering me speechless.

The bastard just smiles at my disconcertedness as he sits up and flexes his neck muscles experimentally. "Then again," he continues in an overly casual tone, "perhaps the massage has served its purpose. That does feel considerably better." A pause, during which I simply gape at him like the idiot he so often accuses me of being. He looks at me through dark lashes. "I was thinking of offering to return the favour."

"You want to give _me_ a back rub?" I admit, he's thoroughly confused me now. But then, I often think he enjoys confusing me.

"Oh, I'm sure my technique is far less practised than yours. I am, after all, quite new at this. Still I suspect I am capable of performing adequately."

"Avon... You're sending me some very mixed signals here."

He gives me an enigmatic smile. "Yes. Shall we?"

Well, hell, I can't resist an offer like that, no matter how strongly the rational side of my brain is telling me that this is almost certainly a very bad idea. So I just look at him for a moment, granting him the opportunity to change his mind, to tell me he was only joking. He doesn't, of course. And so I take my shirt off and I calmly lie down on his bed.

His technique isn't skilled, but his hands are warm, and strong, and just as deft and sure as I would have expected them to be. They glide over my back, kneading my flesh, now gently, now firmly, now with long, slow strokes... Oh, this _was_ a bad idea. No matter how I try to lie here and tell myself that this back rub is nothing more than a back rub, it's impossible not to imagine those hands caressing me in quite another context. Even harder than when it was I who was touching him. _I'm_ harder than when I was touching him, too, and every time he kneads deeply into my muscles and the force pushes me against the bed, the friction against my groin becomes sweetly unbearable. I take a deep breath and strive for some detachment, but it's incredibly difficult when his hands are stroking down my sides, and the heat from his body is radiating into me, and his breath is tickling hot and sweet against the back of my neck.

Very close against the back of my neck, actually. Almost as if he's doing it deliberately. And the provocative way his hands are moving... No, I'm not imagining that, either. He is doing it deliberately. I'm not sure why I'm surprised. Why the hell did I think he was doing this? Not interest in me, no matter what he might have seemed to imply. He's already made his sexual preferences quite clear. What, then? As a demonstration that he doesn't feel threatened by my sexuality, perhaps? Well, yes, maybe that is what I was thinking. And maybe I'm as naïve as he's always telling me I am. Because it seems quite clear to me now what's going on here: I've handed Avon a weapon, and he's testing it to see just what it will do to me. For all his protestations about me, Avon is possibly the most manipulative man I've ever met, and if I don't put a stop to this right now, there's no question that he'll be using it against me on the flight deck next.

So I twist around, angrily, prepared to deliver some scathing rebuke that will let him know that I understand just exactly what he's up to and that it bloody well won't work on _me_.

And then, as he pulls back, looking surprised, I notice something. Well, it would be hard not to notice, with those tight leather trousers he's wearing.

He's every bit as aroused by this as I am.

The angry words never reach my lips, and instead I smile, and move my eyes slowly from his groin to his face. "I thought you weren't interested in men."

He looks puzzled... Puzzled and almost a little frightened, though maybe the latter is just my imagination. "I'm not."

"But you're interested in me."

A smile touches his face, half-amused, half-embarrassed as he glances down at himself. "It would seem pointless to deny it." The troubled look in his eyes doesn't change.

He seems more desirable to me than ever right now, with his hair tousled and that slightly lost look in his eyes, and his desire for me so evident beneath his remaining clothing. I sit up slowly and look him full in the eyes. "You were enjoying touching me."

His lips part as if he's about to say something, but nothing comes out.

"It's all right, Avon," I say gently. I reach out and capture his hands by the wrists, pulling them slowly to me, drawing his palms flat against my chest. He doesn't resist, simply sits there staring at his own hands as if he's never seen them before. "You can touch me." I release his wrists, allowing him the freedom to do as he wills.

He doesn't move, though his breathing seems to be getting faster, and that confused look in his eyes is growing deeper. "I won't hurt you," I want to say, but of course I know better than that. The worst possible thing I could do right now would be to suggest that he might be afraid of me. Even if he is. So I sit there quietly, and he sits there quietly except for his raspy breathing, and after a moment he begins to move his hands. Very slowly, very tentatively, he strokes them across my chest, down my sides. It's a clumsy, uncertain touch on a comparatively non-erogenous part of my body, and, god help me, it is very possibly the most erotic sensation I've ever experienced.

Involuntarily, I make a little gasping noise, and he looks up at me and takes his hands away. He doesn't seem to know what to do with them, though, and makes a couple of odd, helpless gestures before finally resting them on his lap. "Blake..."

It's strange, seeing him at such a loss for words. I wonder just when he found himself losing control of the situation? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that I _like_ it.

I reach out and touch his face very carefully, no sudden moves, as if he were a wild animal I'm afraid to startle. Not too far from the truth, maybe. He lets me stroke his cheek lightly, uncharacteristically passive, as if he's afraid to do anything one way or another until he's got the situation sorted out.

Well, that's a luxury I'm not going to give him. I lean in and kiss him, gently working my lips against his. There are times when I've found myself obsessing over those lips, wondering what it would be like to do just what I'm doing now. In my fantasies, of course, he is always kissing me back, working his lips against mine, drawing my tongue into him... And yet, the reality of kissing him now, his lips still and uncertain and very much closed, is infinitely more satisfying than the most wanton of my fantasies. And when, at last, he responds, his lips moving the tiniest fraction against mine, it's nearly as electric as an orgasm.

Eventually, I pull away from him, knowing that this has to happen slowly if it's going to happen at all. Or, no, not quite true. It has to happen slowly if it _should_ happen at all. It's far too easy to imagine ripping his clothes off and letting wild passion take its fiery course, or whatever the appropriate cliché is from those romance stories Gan sometimes reads. Yes, and far too easy to imagine him hating both of us for it afterwards. The idea isn't even tempting.

He reaches out now, and puts his hands on my upper arms, caressing them slightly, pulling me to him... and then holding me there, close but separate, as if he fears getting any nearer. His breathing is ragged.

"You've never been with a man?" I say, stroking his neck.

"I'm not queer, Blake."

"In that case," I tell him with total sincerity, "I am extremely flattered."

I let my hand stroke up his cheek, over his hair, savouring the textures of him. Smooth skin, soft hair, the almost-invisible wrinkles around his eyes and mouth coming alive at the touch of my fingertips.

His hands are moving tentatively now, up and down my arms and onto my chest. I move slightly in rhythm with their motions, and make an encouraging noise. He glides them over my chest, with more confidence now, and I gasp slightly as his palms make their way over my nipples.

I kiss him again, and this time he responds more eagerly, his mouth slipping open at the touch of my tongue. I lick his lips from the inside and he groans faintly, the sound vibrating against my mouth. Slowly, I explore inside him, tasting him, being tasted by him, our lips and tongues moving endlessly. At some point—I'm not sure quite when—my arms go around him.

He pulls away, finally, and looks at me for a moment. His eyes are dark and wild.

"Blake..."

"Yes, Avon?" I respond, gently, the way one talks to a lover.

He shakes his head. "What the hell are we doing?" His voice is rough, like he's trying to sound angry and not managing it.

I take his hand in mine, brush it against my lips. "What do you want to be doing, Avon?"

He considers that a moment, his eyes locked on me as I nibble at his finger. I can see the struggle going on behind those eyes, the shifting of long-held assumptions. Poor Avon, he always did tend to overthink things.

"I want _you_ ," he says, finally.

I feel ridiculously light-headed, suddenly, as all the blood drains from my face and rushes down to tingle through my stomach and into my groin. For an instant, my lungs don't work.

And, then, all caution forgotten, I'm grabbing him, clasping him to me, his erection pressed into my leg, mine into his belly, and I'm kissing him, deeply and wetly, on the neck, on the face, on the mouth...

"You have me, Avon," I swear between kisses. "You have me. You have me. I'm yours."

He laughs slightly at that, a breathy, disbelieving sound. I know what he's thinking: that's it's the other way around, that he's just handed _me_ the weapon, not that he could say that. He's wrong. Right now, he has more power over me than the Federation ever did. If he asked me for the _Liberator_ right now, I think I'd give it to him. I think I'd give him anything. I can't say that, either, of course, but damned if some part of me doesn't want to.

Gently, I lay him down on the bed, my guiding hands positioning him on his side, just so. For once in his life, he seems to be co-operating with me wholeheartedly, content to go where I lead him. I can still see the uncertainty in his eyes, but there's lust there, too, beautiful lust... And maybe something more. Maybe I might dare to think that he wants this because he cares for me. Because he trusts me. And I think, for Avon, trust and love may be very nearly the same thing.

I lie down facing him and run my eyes and my hands over the length of his body. I am going to make love to this man. The thought is a marvel to me, and I repeat it to myself. I am going to make love with Avon.

Then I realise how stupid it is to be lying here thinking about it when I could be _doing_ it. All thoughts obediently fly out of my head as I kiss him again, long and slow and deep and very much mutual. We begin exploring each other's bodies with our hands as our tongues explore each other's mouths, and for a long, blissful time my world consists of nothing but kissing and stroking, of him licking my ear, of me nibbling at his neck...

Anything but passive, now, he glides his hands firmly down my back, kneads at my still-clad buttocks, trails fingertips lightly along my sides, making me shiver...

My fingers steal to the waistband of his trousers and I pause there for a moment, looking into his eyes, silently asking permission. I can see no confusion there any longer, no uncertainty. We are simply two people doing something that we both very much want.

He nods his head the tiniest fraction, and I reverently undo his trousers, freeing his penis to spring forth into my touch.

It's not as large as mine—leave it to the male ego to make such comparisons, even under these circumstances—but perfectly formed, rosy and beautiful. I strip his trousers the rest of the way off his legs, getting them out of the way, then return to stroke it gently, drinking in the silky-smooth texture of it with my fingers. He gasps.

I slide off the bed and quickly dispatch with my own trousers, then stand there a moment, letting him look at me. I can't quite read the expression on his face, but it is not disgust or an irrational shock at discovering that his partner truly doesn't have a vagina, and I know we've passed the final hurdle, that, irrevocably, this is going to happen.

He makes to sit up as I lower myself to the bed again, but I shake my head, signalling for him to lie still, as he is now, on his back. He understands me effortlessly and complies.

I slide myself on top of him and kiss his lips, releasing them long before he wants me to, then work my way down his body, biting, kissing, nibbling. He lies still beneath me, his hands alternately caressing me and clutching at the bedsheets. And he makes noises, a wide variety of them: groans and moans and little indrawn hisses of breath. I find myself inordinately pleased by this; I had always imagined Avon as a silent, controlled bed partner, and it delights me that he can surprise me so. I reward him for each utterance, returning to nibble at his most sensitive spots again and again.

At last, I have reached my ultimate destination, my face pressed into his pubic hair as my cheek rubs against that beautiful silken cock and my fingers cradle and tease at his balls.

He lets out a particularly satisfying gasp, and this time, for his reward, I take him into my mouth.

My technique at _this_ , at the risk of further immodesty, is also more than acceptable. It ought to be; I learned it from the same skilled and attentive teacher. And I vow to give Avon the full benefit of that learning now. I want to make this as good for him as it has ever been, as it ever could be. And so I use all the tools available to me: sucking him deep into me with my cheeks, massaging the length of his shaft and teasing his head with my tongue, fondling his balls with my fingers.

Not that I'm able to concentrate wholly on technique. So much of me is absorbed, instead, with the feeling of him inside me, the weight and the texture and the taste of him. Particularly the taste, as the first salty droplets begin to leak from him in delicious promise of more to come.

I cast my eyes up at him, and a thrill goes through me as I see that he is _looking_ at me. How easily he could have laid his head back, closed his eyes, and pretended that this was a woman doing this to him, and I could hardly have held it against him. But instead his eyes are transfixed on me, wide and bright, as if it is the sight of me—of _me_ —that excites him, as much as what I am doing. My own penis leaps at the thought, and suddenly I'm sucking him into me, hard, swallowing him deep into the back of my throat, urging him to come, to come in me. Yes, Avon, my lover, my lover...

"Blake! Stop!"

I stop. I'm not sure how, but I stop.

I stare up at him, letting him see my puzzlement, my frustration. Is he so threatened by this that, having come to the very edge, he must still prevent himself from crossing it?

But he flashes me a toothy smile, looking incredibly sexy and happy and pleased, and says, "I had anticipated doing something with a bit more mutuality."

God, I think I love this man. But that's a thought to deal with later. For now... My mind briefly flashes through possibilities. There is so much, so much, that I would love to do with him. Images of me inside him, him inside me, the two of us taking each other in our mouths... Well, let's not start with too much, too soon. There will be other nights for us, in that I have faith.

Carefully, I position myself over him. I kiss him, slowly. Then I reach between our bodies, capture his cock with my hand, and carefully manoeuvre my own to rub against his.

He thrusts against me, eager, and I feel a grin widening my mouth until it threatens to split my face. I fondle him, teasingly, brushing against him with my hand and my cock.

He grabs me by the hair, pulls me down into a deep, hungry kiss, crushing my body down onto his own. His tongue thrusts into my mouth as his cock thrusts into my belly, and all is wonderful, wonderful, white-hot sensation as we writhe against each other.

Then he throws back his head, convulsing under me, and I watch his face transform as he shouts out my name. And my eyes stay fixed on his face, that incredible look on his face, as his seed spurts hot and slick in the trapped space between our bodies and oh... Oh... _Oh! Oh, god, Avon, yes!_

It takes a while before I can breathe, or think, or do anything but lie there collapsed on his shoulder and listen to the thudding of my heart, and his. Gradually, the manic beating slows, and the room comes back into focus.

I turn over to lie cuddled against him, kissing him languidly on the cheek, because that's the only part of him I can reach.

After a moment, he laughs, a sound that's delighted and disbelieving at the same time.

"What?"

"It's just that this has to be the single most improbable thing that has ever happened to me."

"More improbable than escaping from a prison ship onto an advanced alien spacecraft that just happens to be floating around derelict?" I can hear his amusement echoed in my voice.

"Considering that the first event was a necessary precondition for the second," he smirks, "yes."

I find myself utterly, irrationally charmed by this. "I love it when you talk techie," I grin.

He smiles back at me. I kiss him. He pulls me close to him, cradling me against his warm, amazing body.

"I love you," I say, without meaning to.

He laughs again, a free and beautiful sound. "You know... Somehow, I find that I don't much mind."

And we laugh together, and I know that it will all be all right.


	3. Backup Disk, by Executrix

# Backup Disk  
Executrix

1\. This must be what is meant by "madly in love", or being "crazy about" someone. Intense, as one would expect. Unprecedented. Useless, or worse. Blake? What in Hell have I ever done to deserve being in love with Blake?

How, based on a pretext that would have been rejected as hoary by any reasonably savvy centurion back when Christ was a corporal... did he end up asleep in my bed ( _my_ bed)? How did we end up spot-welded by a most unsavoury melding of our bio-products? If it's a matter of definitions, this must be what is meant by "shagged senseless". Diverting all that blood from the brain—well, what sort of judgement can you expect under such circumstances?

Move over, Swann. You think you got yourself into a spot of bother over someone who wasn't even your type? You didn't even begin to fathom the concept of "not your type".

I don't know what's the worst of it. That it was with a man—that is, altogether too similar, too close for comfort? Or that it was with Blake? He's his own fucking species, it's beyond miscegenation.

Going to bed with someone you don't like—that's unnatural, isn't it? Well, at least if there's no money changing hands.

2\.  Concentrating, really concentrating, is wonderful. It always has been, back when it was just me, a maths problem, and a screen, or even a bit of paper. It's perfect—alone, in the sense of having no distractions, but not alone, in the sense of having the work.

Round here, the average time between entering this blessed country, and some fool stumbling into it in hobnail boots, is circa three seconds plus or minus a second.

So of course I could hear Blake trying to be silent. ( _Travis_ could have heard him. Two sectors away.) I could see him studying me because he thought I couldn't see him.

Actually it wasn't as annoying as I would have projected. In one sense, he shattered the stillness. But in another sense, the duality of me watching Blake watching me had the same perfect egg-shape as the duality of me and a problem. So I didn't mind letting the sensors wait for a while. Blake wanted some calibrations run, or wanted that as a pretext to get off the flight deck.

And that was all right. Because I wanted a pretext to look at him. Just look at him, nominally to diagnose this insanity (insh'allah, temporary). But really, just to look at him.

If I had any interest at all in men (all right, if I had had any previous interest at all...), well, wouldn't I want someone handsomer?

3\.  "It's not good for your back, sitting hunched over like that," he said. This is true enough, but it's not good for Jenna's or Cally's either, and entire limbs could drop off either of them before Blake would offer to intervene.

Oh God his hand felt so cool on the back of my neck, metaphorically an oasis in the desert. That's a Biblical phrase—oh my love and coolth. I always liked that, in part because there were only about four days a year at home when it ever got hot enough to welcome being any cooler. Literally, his hand felt cool because I made him nervous. Well, good. Let him have a dose of his own medicine.

He terrifies me.

Then he moved his hand, and I thought both, dammit, he's taking it away, and good, this has gone far enough.

One hand on each of my shoulders, abrupt, rhythmic caresses—well, I suppose he thought he was massaging my shoulders. No he didn't—no one could be that naïve.

I bent forward minimally, marginally, nominally so he could have slightly better access, and so I could pillow my head on my crossed arms. That way, he couldn't see my face. He pressed down gently, until the nape of my neck was exposed, and all I could think of is the bite of a hungry, or rather a lustfully possessive, lion.

And for a moment I was angry as hell. I'll submit to him the day after Travis reads him his rights. The moment passed, though, and I wondered if anyone has to submit to anyone, if I couldn't channel and expiate this ludicrous passion I feel for him into the pleasure of our two bodies.

"I can't really reach you like this," he said. We've clicked on Double Entendre View, I thought. "You need a proper lying-down massage."

"Are you offering?"

"I have been told my technique is quite good."

"Then you've done this before."

"And the crowd went wild."

"Good," I said. "Science progresses only by experiment, but I prefer to be the researcher rather than the microbe."

"I've got some massage oil in my cabin," he said, all bluff and hearty. I'll just bet you have, I thought. "I'll go and get it," he said. "I'll be in your cabin in a moment."

My cabin, of course. Not only does that make it easy for him to get up and leave, but he could rely on the fact that I made the bed in the morning. God knows the last time he made his—the last time his Mum had any authority, or the Second Punic War, probably.

4\.  "You don't expect me to do it through your shirt, do you?" he asked with specious reasonableness. I don't know what _I_ expected—to get it ripped off my body? to really drive him round the twist by casting him a sidelong glance and divesting it on a thread-by-thread basis? Probably to defer for another three seconds or so a real acknowledgement of what we were doing.

Say it. I proposed having it off with a man. A fellow-owner, or perhaps one should say lessor, of one of those inconvenient appendages with its wealth of suggestions, one less convenient and more unhygienic than the previous.

It's illegal, for one thing. It's a Class B offence. As, of course, is grand larceny in the first degree, but you can get some sort of respect for that.

Amazing that you can stop for a moment and visualise a boundary—an honest citizen on one side, a criminal on the other. Normal on one side, queer on the other.

5\.  Oh Christ goddamn. When he tipped the oil onto my back, just feeling that, like taking a blast from a flame-thrower loaded with confetti (or electrons). Just knowing that he was going to touch me, it was all I could do to keep from drilling the bed like a hummingbird with a severe cocaine problem. Even with a full upper-and-lower set of dental impressions on my wrist, Blake could still hear me moan.

Making fun of it is a distancing tactic, isn't it? But it _was_ funny. Inter alia.

The sound of his hands, rubbing together, buffered with the oil. The sound, almost more than the sensation, of his hands, moving through the oil on my back. His skin against mine. At that moment, it was only the skin of the palms of his hands, neutral enough. That is, until somehow he slipped and fell forward onto me. Slipped? Oh, I suppose it could have been an accident. This is Blake we're talking about, after all.

But I did think that he was showing bad faith toward the, admittedly substantial, erection very firmly pressed into my thigh. A fat lot of good that was doing either of us there.

"If this is all some clumsy attempt at a seduction, Blake, I shall be most annoyed."

"Some people enjoy it," he said, a little too defensively.

"To seduce is to take advantage," I said. "To induce someone to do something—well, she, generally speaking—doesn't want or approve of. What are you doing here?"

"I came to give you a back rub. That's all."

"Oh. Well, my back _is_ feeling better. How's yours?"

"Confused. Tied in knots. Like the rest of me."

6\.  I must say I felt a bit defensive. I'd given back rubs before, but in an amateurish way, more an excuse to cover as large a surface as possible with emollients. Equally, I must admit that the stupid bastard had made a study of it.

I wanted to show him a thing or two about who knew more about back rubs, but as it happened, it was he. And anyway, it's bloody difficult to get any mechanical advantage, propped up at an unnatural angle—now, that's what's unnatural!—to postpone detection of an erection that didn't seem any easier to conceal than a rocket launch in a birdbath.

Perhaps I was wrong. There isn't a moment, but a process, a flow. There was the moment when I took a deep breath and initiated the sequence to transfer all those digits, those electronic pulses, representing all that money, to Anna and me. But that moment would have meant nothing without the programming I did, which in turn would have meant nothing without the decision to do it.

Intellectually, it's not a very sound analogy. What if everyone went around embezzling large sums? It wouldn't work. What would happen if every man had a cock in his hand—and, well, another man's in his other hand? Sod-all, really, as long as someone took the trouble to reproduce the species.

So I spent a few minutes, giving a passable imitation of a man giving Blake a back rub. It might have deceived a naïve observer, but it was hopeless nonetheless. At that point, I told myself that I could still have stopped, pulled away (although I wouldn't bet my life on my acting talents), blamed him for the whole fiasco, and altogether made him wait for blackmail like a slave humbly waiting for the lash to fall.

Blackmail, though? It wasn't a very credible threat. Jenna wouldn't believe that Blake found me attractive. Cally would be boundlessly tolerant of any hormone-driven human activity. Gan would think that I shouldn't have mentioned it. He already thinks I'm a cad. Vila would have said that he knew along that Blake was barmy, and making a pass at me just proved his case.

7\.  In some ways it was quite satisfactory in and of itself. Blake prostrated on my bed. A table prepared in the presence of my enemies, although at the moment he was the most troublesome of my enemies. About twenty-five percent of Blake available to my hands, his skin smooth even without the oil. The oil smelled like oranges and vanilla. Blake smelled like civet and chypre with a pleasing top note of anxiety.

Self-interest dictated a few more minutes of massage, then sending Blake off to his cabin with a hearty slap on the shoulder. No doubt to be followed by two complementary sessions of solitary (not to mention nasty, brutal, and especially short) vice.

Lust could have gone either way, evidently I was. But love. Love dictated that we continue. That I continue. Poor old self-interest lost out, again. How I regretted that, then, but particularly later.

8\.  Sooner or later, I was going to have to kiss him, which would be the final and most incriminating admission. As the back-rub pretence sputtered out, he started to turn around. There was a moment when he was lying on his back, and I, rearing back as far as possible, could touch his torso a little. It was awkward as hell at that angle.

I could see his face, for a moment, but it was too intimate, that pain added to arousal closed my eyes. He reached up carefully and touched my face. His fingers were just out of reach, I wanted to suck them into my mouth until his hand disappeared.

With my back arched like that, I'd be fit for traction in minutes. So that was why I shifted down on the bed, lying next to Blake, my head on his shoulder as a very inadequate stopgap measure.

I'm an average sort of height, for a man, a height which is not unattainable for a woman. Still and all, I'm used to having my body enclose, and surround, and protect.

Oh charming. In other words, not only did Blake have the wrong body parts, but they were all in the wrong place.

He bent his head a little, and tilted my chin up a little, and I could feel his teeth through the lips pressed to my mouth. Blake has a rather stubborn beard, you can feel the stubble just a few hours after he shaves, so I felt it then, quite unlike the smoothness and reminiscence of perfume I was used to.

My hand was on his hip, and it slid backwards to a more stable position. Then he had one hand behind my neck, one on the small of my back. To get the arch out of my back, I moved my leg until it was on top of his.

How could I breathe in such a position? So of course my lips parted and my mouth opened for a series of shuddering breaths. And that was very bad: to lie there, my mouth stretched open, receiving his thrusts, longing for the next stroke. Not quite "begin as you mean to go on".

What the hell were we doing? He let me push him back and straddle him, and the wonderful feeling of heat and pressure against me, and the small sounds generated by the Blake-fingertip interface very nearly served to distract me from the terrifying realisation.

Now I'll never get out of here. I'll never be able to leave, never be able to go anywhere safe. He can ask me anything, and I'll do it.

9\.  I pulled away abruptly, and the expression on Blake's face shifted (though I don't really know what it was before, I couldn't get my eyes open for the life of me). I bent over and removed his socks, with no particular gentleness, and did the same for my own.

He'd never think of it, and what could be more ridiculous than a large man, flaunting a rampant erection and a pair of FSA-surplus khaki socks that he picked up in a job lot somewhere?

"Oh," he said, desperately relieved. Trust Blake to escalate the situation. He touched the waistband of my trousers, fearing or perhaps hoping for denial of permission, but I nodded just a little bit, and very quickly and unsubtly I was naked and unable to assert any sort of claim to objectivity. Then it was my turn to feel alone, as he turned away. For a second, I thought that he was going to walk away, leave me exposed and lonely. That's just like him. (No, actually it's just like me, I'd better keep track, confusion on such points can be fatal.) But all he did was strip off his trousers and pants.

Just as you'd expect. A blunt instrument. I think I can lay claim to a certain elegance of silhouette, in that regard. Blake certainly seemed to find it acceptable. He kissed my mouth again but not enough, and moved down my body, until I was shivering and turning beneath his hands and crying out over and over.

If he knew as much about tactics as he knows about cocksucking, the ticker tape parade celebrating our victory would have been held six months ago. Despite having the pillow clasped over my face so desperately that I felt like a one-man show of the fifth act of every Shakespearean tragedy (self-smothered, killing myself to die on a kiss), I knew that in a moment I would dissolve into his mouth and, worse, scream.

"Blake! Stop!"

He did stop, say that for him.

"I had anticipated doing something with a bit more mutuality."

I thought about, and discarded, the option of reciprocating what he had been doing. I wasn't ready yet. Given the variable quality of the blow jobs I had received in the past, there must be something to it. Well, I can learn. After all, my previous life hadn't been marked by an unending round of spaceship repairs either.

I did feel confident about being able to provide a fairly adequate hand job; men have an advantage here. In spite of any and all evidence, women never really believe that something of value actually can and should be slammed around like that.

So I got my arms around him, our bodies juxtaposed, and I kissed him, and we moved together. Damnably, at some point, far earlier than I would have liked, I came off against him, and I'm sure I said a few things that I would not wish to have taken down and used in a court of law.

With any luck at all, my autonomic nervous system continued to caress Blake, because for a bit I was in no condition to do much of anything. As I rose through layers of almost-consciousness, I could focus a little better with every moment, with every touch, every taste, every stroke of my fingers against the solidity and amplitude of Blake. Once you get root access, you can do anything you like with a system.

"I love you," he said, although perhaps that should be discounted because at that moment he was thrusting very hard into my hand, against my hip, both his thighs crushing one of mine.

"Well, stop it. D'you know the first thing that Napoleon—oh, you know, Servalan's remote great-uncle—used to ask when they gave him the name of someone to be made a general? 'Is he lucky?' I'm not. This sort of thing is all very well in its place, but I should hate for it to get out of control."

Now he'll never be able to get out of here. Worse and worse.

Oh Lord. We know what we are but we know not what we may be.

And now he's asleep, but there is no rest for the wicked, and I am retracing some of the more interesting bits of him. When he wakes up, if he can't tell how I feel about him in the way I touch him, well, he's a greater fool than I thought.

> _Well, now, What are we doing in love?  
>  What are we doing in a mess like this?  
> You had to be someone I couldn't resist..._


	4. Self-inflating… by Tom Forsyth

# Self-inflating...

  


#  _Tom Forsyth_

  
Actually, all Tarrants come free with self-inflating egos—it's standard issue. Just yank his chain, and fwoosh! You must read the label, though:

"Please wait until exiting the cabin before inflating. There is an additional tube that can be blown on to top up the level of inflation."

Strangely enough, in practice the spikey Avon never seems to burst the inflated Tarrant—they just rub against each other and produce sparks.

Ooh—did anyone spot the double-entendre? No? Good, I got away with it then.


	5. Natural Habitat, by Belatrix Carter

# Natural Habitat

  


#  _Belatrix Carter_

  
A great cheer rang out from all three of them as the humans materialised inside the experiment chamber.

"Excellent! Excellent!" cried old Professor T'zzurt, his mandibles waving enthusiastically as he gave both of his students a congratulatory clap on the carapace. "Wonderful job intercepting their matter transmission beam, Zurrg!" Zurrg flushed pale purple with pleasure.

"Well, let's see just what we've got," said T'zzurt, turning up the magnification on the holoviewer. Currently, it was showing an image of two very confused-looking humans examining the featureless white room in which they'd unexpectedly found themselves. At least, he assumed they were confused, based on the frantic way they were looking around them. He'd had no first-hand experience at reading human facial expressions yet, of course.

"Breeding pair, do you think?" asked Zurrg.

Mkikt, who had so far simply been sitting there with a smugly pleased look in his compound eyes, leaned forward at this, peering closely at the image. "Umm... Let's see... The larger one is a male, I think."

"Definitely a male," said T'zzurt, with more confidence than was strictly justified. "Look at the muscle mass."

"What about the other one?" asked Zurrg.

"Female, I think."

"Don't females have bumps on their thorax?" asked Mkikt.

"We'd need a look at their genitals to be sure," said Zurrg knowingly.

"Do you even know what human genitals _look_ like?"

"Oh, stop arguing," interrupted the Professor, "and just use the brain-scanner, will you?"

"Will it work properly on something this alien?" asked Zurrg.

"Sexual impulses for all known beings reside in the lowest sectors of the brain," T'zzurt lectured, "and should be easy enough to access. Just scan the smaller one, and see what you can pick up."

Several minutes passed as the two students began manipulating the equipment, under the watchful eyes of their mentor. Eventually, Mkikt looked up from the readouts, his face glowing ultraviolet with satisfaction. "Definite indications of sexual interest directed at the larger specimen," he announced triumphantly. "Looks like we have a breeding pair!"

"Wonderful!" cried the Professor. "Zurrg, why don't you go ahead and set up the environment."

"I'm still not sure how accurate the archive files are in regard to human domestic environments," said Zurrg nervously. "I mean, those electromagnetic transmissions we intercepted may well be centuries old, and..."

"Just do it, Zurrg. I'm sure it's close enough to their natural habitat."

"Yes, sir." Zurrg pushed another button.

###

"Liberator! Liberator! Answer, damn you!" Still nothing. Avon brought the heel of his hand down on the bracelet's off button rather harder than was either necessary or advisable. "It's no good, Blake. I think something's jamming the transmission."

Blake turned from his fruitless inspection of the blank, apparently impenetrable walls surrounding them. "What do—"

His words cut off abruptly, leaving his mouth hanging open in astonishment, as the walls, the floor—indeed, the very air around them—began to blur and change...

...and suddenly, they were standing in what looked for all the universe like an archaic kitchen.

Avon whirled, gun drawn, and nearly fired at a perfectly innocent (if rather tastelessly frilly) curtain as it fluttered in the slight breeze blowing through an open window. Looking almost sheepish, he holstered his weapon again and joined Blake in staring dumbly around at the environment they now found themselves in.

Besides the aforementioned frilly curtains, the room featured obscenely cheerful flowered wallpaper; pink-and-white chequered tiles; a small wooden table with two uncomfortable-looking chairs; and an entire array of spotlessly gleaming, but nevertheless clearly antique, kitchen appliances in a shade that neither man was capable of identifying as Harvest Gold. Through an open archway, a cosy living room was visible, and beyond it a hallway. Through the windows they could see a neatly manicured lawn complete with a white picket fence and an apple tree, but beyond the fence swirled an odd grey nothingness that was decidedly difficult to look at.

"What the hell?" said Avon.

Blake could only shrug in helpless agreement.

###

"Well," boomed T'zzurt, startling a sleepy Mkikt, who'd remained on observational duty during his fellow student's designated sleep period. "What have they been doing?"

"Er, they thoroughly investigated the dwelling..."

"Good! Good!"

"They seemed particularly interested in the barrier. They tried firing their weapons at it...."

"You _had_ deactivated them, of course?"

"Um, yes," said Mkikt, who in fact hadn't thought to do so until they'd actually pointed the things at the force field. "And, well, now it looks like the male is asleep. The female seems to be keeping watch."

"Standing guard over her mate, hmm? How charmingly mammalian!"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, good. Carry on. I'll be back in a few days to see how they're settling in."

"Yes, sir."

###

Over the course of the next several days, Blake and Avon discovered, through careful, methodical investigation (interspersed with a few fits of blind, frustrated rage), that the swirling grey field which had them imprisoned here could not be knocked down, tunnelled under, blown up (at least, not with the pitiful explosives they'd been able to put together from the household chemicals found under the kitchen sink), or deactivated by sheer force of will. They'd also discovered that the operation of 20th century kitchen appliances is not an intuitive skill for those accustomed to computerised food processing, and that, whatever a "TV Dinner" might actually be, it ceases to have even novelty value after three or four successive meals.

They also discovered that, after a few days, even the game of trading insults and blame for their current situation was beginning to pale. But, having nothing else to entertain them, they kept it up, anyway. Or at least Avon did.

One thing they did manage to agree on, after a particularly prolonged and (from Avon's perspective, at least) entertaining argument was that, whoever their captors might be, it was looking increasingly unlikely that they would suddenly show up in order to murder Blake and Avon in their sleep. And so they dispensed with the custom of keeping a watch, and thus found themselves—inevitably, since neither would suffer being relegated to the sofa—sharing the same slightly-too-frilly bed.

###

"Excellent!" cried T'zzurt, rubbing his forelimbs together gleefully. "Now that they seem to have settled into their environment, perhaps they will breed!"

###

Slowly, sleepily, Avon reached out under the covers, wanting to draw that wonderful, solid warmth up close to him. Dreamily, he stroked his hand down Blake's flank, his fingers glorying in the silky feel of Blake's skin. Blake murmured, bringing Avon more fully awake, stirring his arousal.

 _Well, why not?_ he thought, scooting closer to Blake, trailing a languid hand across Blake's smooth chest.

Blake stiffened, suddenly completely awake. "Avon..."

"Yes, Blake?" The voice was a seductive whisper in his ear.

"What are you...? Stop it!"

"Are you sure you want me to?" The hand moved sideways, fingers sliding provocatively over a nipple.

"Yes!" Blake rolled over abruptly, away from Avon, breaking the contact. He regarded Avon with a slightly embarrassed look. "You're a very attractive man, Avon, really..."

"Oh, spare me."

"It's just, well, you're a _man_ , and..."

"Oh, go back to sleep, Blake. If I'd been awake enough to realise it was you, I'd never have started."

"I mean, I certainly support your right to express your sexuality in any way you choose, in fact, I'd consider it one of the basic freedoms that we're fighting for, but as a matter of personal preference..."

Avon stuck a pillow over his head.

###

"They're still not breeding, Professor!" wailed Zurrg.

"What! Not a single mating? Impossible."

"Maybe they just don't breed well in captivity, sir."

"Maybe it's a medical problem," mused the Professor. "I think I'll take a look through some of the more obscure archive files. See if I can figure this thing out."

###

"You may feel free to sleep on the sofa, Blake, if I make you uncomfortable."

"No," said Blake, looking uncomfortable. "I trust you."

Avon snorted.

###

Mkikt was on duty when T'zzurt came back and promptly swatted him across his antennae with a rolled-up hardcopy from the archive files.

"You dolt! It's obvious why they're not breeding! Do you know why they're not breeding?"

"Sir?" squeaked the unfortunate student.

"I'll tell you why they're not breeding! It's because _you_ did not get us a breeding pair!"

"Actually, sir, it was Zurrg who selected..."

T'zzurt hit him again. " _You got us two males!_ "

"But, sir, the smaller one definitely..."

But the Professor would not be calmed, his carapace glowing bright orange with anger and frustration. "How are we supposed to observe the interactions of a breeding pair of humans if we _don't have a female_?!"

"Maybe we could get... Ouch!" said Mkikt, as the Professor swatted him again.

"No, it's too late for that. I've already written up the proposal."

"Well, er, perhaps we could alter the biology of one of them," said Mkikt, hopefully. "The female morphology ought to be encoded in the males' dormant genes, and..."

" _Mkikt!_ " roared T'zzurt.

Mkikt winced in anticipation of another blow.

But his mentor's carapace had shifted to a delighted purple. "You're _brilliant_!"

Mkikt sighed in relief.

###

Avon woke up in the middle of the night, feeling the call of nature. As he stumbled out of bed, eyes half-closed, he was vaguely aware that something felt strangely... wrong. But there seemed to be nothing dangerous in the room—well, nothing more dangerous than Blake's snoring, anyway. So, with a slight shrug, he stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the light...

Blake was awakened by the sound of a woman screaming.

Naked save for his underwear, he dashed into the bathroom. When his eyes had adjusted to the glare, he could see that there was, indeed, a woman in the bathroom. She was staring at herself in the mirror, her eyes huge and panicky.

"Who... What... How did you get in here?" He took a closer look at her. Attractive woman. Well, hard not to notice that, given that she was completely naked. Nose was a bit large, though. Dark hair. Pretty mouth. Dark eyes, like chips of obsidian, which had started to lose their panicky look and were now glaring at him as if he were contemptibly stupid...

" _Avon?_ "

"It would appear," said an almost-familiar female voice, "that our captors have a fairly advanced biological technology. And a decidedly odd sense of humour."

###

"Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?" asked Zurrg dubiously.

"A minor change, my boy! A minor change! They'll soon adjust."

###

It was a long time before they gave up trying to figure it out and went back to bed, and, of course, neither of them was quite able to sleep.

Eventually, Blake gave in to temptation. _Why not? He was interested before..._ Slowly, gently, a hand ventured forth to stroke Avon's breast...

"Ouch!" he cried, sucking slap-stung fingertips into his mouth.

"If you didn't want me with a cock, Blake, you're certainly not going to have me without one."

"Tease." He muttered it into his pillow so Avon couldn't hear.

###

Mkikt and Zurrg were sharing a shift... and a sense of growing despair.

"They're still not mating!" wailed Zurrg. " _And_ they do nothing but argue all the time! What are we going to do? If they refuse to exhibit a normal human domestic life, the Professor will lose his funding..."

"And probably take it out on us," muttered Mkikt.

"And we'll never get our theses written, and we'll never graduate, and we'll both end up swabbing out the egg chambers for minimum wage!" concluded Zurrg desolately.

"Well, what do you suggest we do about it? I mean, we've already tweaked this experiment more than is scientifically justified, if you ask me..."

Zurrg slowly began to change colour.

"Oh, no. You do have an idea."

"What if," said Zurrg. "What if we just... _adjusted_ them a little?"

"But we already did..."

"No, I mean, _mentally_. You can set that brain-scanner to 'send' instead of 'receive', can't you?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Reprogram them a little? Temporarily, of course. Make them a bit more... normal? More like the humans in the archive tapes? Maybe even adjust their memories?"

"It... may be possible," Mkikt conceded.

"Aw, go on. What can it hurt?"

"Well... All right."

###

Kerri dusted her flour-covered hands on her floral-print apron with a sense of satisfaction, and moved to the door to greet her husband with a peck on the cheek. He'd been out working on the picket fence: repairing and whitewashing it. He was so handy. And so very manly, with his shirt off and perspiration glistening on his broad, smooth chest.

"I baked chocolate-chip cookies," she murmured in his ear. "Your favourite!"

He kissed her deeply, thrillingly. "I know what I'd rather have to eat," he said, an impish smile on his face. His hands caressed her under the apron.

"Oh, Roj! In the middle of the afternoon?"

"Day, night, afternoon... As often as possible, Kerri, if we want the baby to come."

"Oh, Rojjy!" she cooed. "Make a woman out of me!"

###

"See!" shouted Zurrg, flushing deep ultraviolet. "It's working!"

"I'm still not sure about this..."

"Pessimist. Look, they're finally mating!"

###

Kerri lay passive beneath her husband, submitting to his strength, his passion, his utter possession of her.

"I love you, Roj!" she cried as he pounded into her. "I love you!"

He was too busy thrusting to answer.

###

They were so excited that they didn't even take note of the colour of T'zzurt's carapace when the Professor came bursting into the Observation Room.

"Look, Professor!" burbled Zurrg. "They're breeding!"

T'zzurt clouted them both painfully across the antennae.

"You idiots! What have you done?"

"Sir?" Zurrg looked genuinely puzzled. Mkikt groaned.

"You've been messing with the subjects' psyches, haven't you? Don't deny it!" He smacked them both again, even though neither of them actually _had_ denied it. "The whole experiment's compromised! This was supposed to be a non-invasive observation of humans in their natural habitat! And look what you've done!"

"But, sir, _you_ said..."

"Quite, Zurrg! You've done quite enough damage, I think. Thanks to you imbeciles, I've got the Scientific Ethics Committee breathing down the back of my exoskeleton! We could not only lose funding, I could lose my shot at tenure! Reverse the alterations, right now!"

"But Professor..."

" _Right now!_ "

###

 _What the...?_ Avon had vague memories of how he— _she_ —had got into this position, but none of them made the slightest bit of sense. That was, however, not the most relevant point right now. The most relevant point right now was that she was lying under Blake in a most humiliatingly submissive fashion while he... Well, actually, those sensations were really exceedingly... interesting. Not to mention pleasurable. But this was most decidedly not the way to be going about things.

Without stopping to give it another moment's thought, she twisted out from under Blake, rolling him onto his back and rapidly tying him to the bedframe with the belt from the bathrobe that had so conveniently happened to be hanging from the bedpost.

He looked comically startled. "Kerri?"

" _Don't_ call me that!" she snarled, and, pinning him firmly down onto the mattress, proceeded to lower herself onto his straining erection.

###

"The physical alterations, too! Quickly, now! Before the Ethics people get here!"

"But, Professor, you authorised..."

" _Do it!_ "

Mkikt began pushing buttons.

###

Two simultaneous screams of pain rang out as Avon, who had pulled herself completely off Blake in order to prolong his delightfully passionate frenzy, descended with considerable force onto Blake's penis with the intent of engulfing it into an opening he suddenly no longer possessed.

Once they had recovered from the initial shock of the pain, the two of them spent an additional moment staring in bemusement at Avon's newly-restored masculine genitalia.

Avon shrugged philosophically and reached for the tube of hand lotion on the nightstand.

###

"What do we do now, Professor?"

"Nothing. Just... Let them be."

###

Feeling greatly re-energised but more anxious to escape than ever, Avon came up with a so-crazy-it-might-just-work plan which involved using the wiring from a smoke detector, the power pack from one of the _Liberator_ handguns, some random pieces pulled from various kitchen appliances, and a few bottles of household chemicals. In theory, the gadget he was putting together, in combination with certain brilliant modifications to his teleport bracelet, might _just_ manage to set up a signal on the appropriate frequency to deactivate the force field and allow them to escape.

###

"Uh, Professor, the humans have somehow managed to deactivate the force field. What should we do?"

"Oh, let them go. They're scientifically useless. Damned mammals."

###

"Liberator! Liberator are you there?"

"Keep trying, Blake. With the field down, we _should_ be able to contact them. Assuming they haven't simply left, of course."

"Liberator..."

"Blake, is that you? We thought we'd lost you for good!"

"We weren't entirely certainly about that for a while, ourselves. Stand by to teleport, Jenna."

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Just a minute, Avon. I wanted to bring something." He vanished into the kitchen and came out holding a bunched-up piece of cloth.

"Blake, what the hell could you _possibly_ want with that apron?"

"I was hoping I could get you do wear it again sometime. It was quite a turn-on." He grinned hugely. "Jenna, teleport!" he yelled. And ducked.


	6. On web vs zines, by  Helen Patrick

# On web vs zines  
 _Helen Patrick_

Personally, I'd rather have a zine to hold in my hot little hand. The thrill as it falls through the letterbox, ready for me to take a knife to its wrappings and carefully slit them open without damaging the precious object inside, then slowly spreading open the cover, enjoying that heady smell of virgin paper, knowing that I'm the first to run my fingers over its pages... Then taking it off to bed for an evening's unbridled reading pleasure. You can't take a computer to bed unless it's one of those sexy little Vaios, and they're so damn expensive. Nor can you take a computer into the bathroom.


	7. Chapter 7

# Breakup Value  
 _Executrix_

 

1\.  "We're through!" Blake said, with the light behind him, and for a moment Avon could only watch him. Blake looked incongruously young, and wrenchingly handsome, and so happy that it made Avon jealous. But then, he expected any happiness addressed _R. Blake_ to be labelled _Compliments of Kerr Avon_.

The moment passed, and Blake rushed off to check on Gan. Avon closed his eyes, seeing once again the magnetic vortex displayed on the secondary screen. The swirling red vectors reminded him of the electricity crackling between them. Avon had no trouble thinking of a central orifice that would be a suitable target for an impetuous plunge. He could do without Jenna's hand on the tiller, though.

He had told Blake to turn back, and was as usual ignored, and Blake got away with it again with corresponding damage to Avon's personal omniscience scorecard.

Still and all, in a plate of bacon and eggs, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. Avon was involved in being right, but committed to not getting killed. To fall in a glorious cause while protecting one's lover was one thing, he believed. Dying for no good reason, in a rampaging state of chronic randiness, was something else entirely.

And so, scrupulously giving fair warning (in his dread of ever attracting unearned regard, Avon always gave more warnings than the application blank for a litigators' 5k road race), he said "Staying with you requires a degree of—" _mendacity_ "—stupidity of which I no longer feel capable."

Then Blake said something that Avon had to admit was rather clever. And then he walked away, not (and never) understanding the extent of the white-hot rage that provoked.

Therefore, Avon considered it somewhere between enjoyable cheap irony and an omen when he was not only permitted but ordered to go to XK-72. Having planned to go there on a scouting trip, he decided he might as well go there and stay there. Blake certainly wasn't dying of overwork to keep him onboard.

The snap decision made it a bit of a come-as-you-are party, but Avon had started all over from scratch before. He doubted if the research station would have a Wardrobe Room, but he was certain that he'd be offered some sort of salary for his scientific work. Not to mention some sort of capital payment for the dowry he offered. His only un-replaceable possession was Anna's picture, and he always carried that close anyway.

2\.  "I am offering you my services," Avon told the Director of the research station. "And, among other things, the secret of matter transmission. You and your foundation stand to make a fortune. I'm merely asking for your guarantee that you will maintain your neutrality—and protect your investment—by letting the others leave unmolested."

Farren looked at him as if he thought—no, as if he didn't dare to hope—that the services, and the other things were... services. And other things.

The possibility entranced Avon. Immediate acceptance, not scratching at stony ground. Grateful surrender, not house-to-house fighting for dominance. The quiet pace of research, interrupted by the excitement of discovery. No longer having to live with his heart in his throat (and his hands wrapped around Blake's).

"Just so long as we call things by their right names," Avon said. "I won't leave one space-borne closet for another." He stood up, leaned over the desk, and kissed Farren with gentle decisiveness. "Well?"

"I—oh!—I have to finish my shift. In an hour. Look, here's the keycode for the computer lab. I'll call ahead to let them know you're coming. And here's the keycode for—for my quarters. The lab is Room A413. My quarters are on the second level, room 18."

3\.  Farren paced around his bedroom (which he always kept neat; which the domestic staff cleaned regularly; and which had been neatened several times in the past twenty minutes). He must have been winding me up, Farren thought. Or, one of our sponsors sent him, to see who's queer, there hasn't been a witch hunt yet, I should have expected it...

Then the door opened.

Avon scanned the room rapidly, poured a glass of wine from the open bottle on the bedside table, and handed it to Farren. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched his legs out in front of him. "Sorry I'm late... there were some things in the Mentucci-space server that didn't look quite right and I was trying to get a bit of insight into the situation. Let's talk about the computer systems for a quarter of an hour or so. I genuinely want to do that, and in any case it'll heighten the suspense."

The discussion lasted only about eight minutes. Farren lasted less time than that, surrendering regretfully to an orgasm that felt like it lasted approximately a year, while Avon was still only halfway through removing Farren's shirt using proper archaeological technique.

"I'm sorry," Farren said, once he could talk. "Isn't that pathetic? But I haven't ever... well, like this. In a friendly manner. And hardly at all, to speak of. Sometimes, when I went on leave... there'd be a park or someplace. There always is."

"Yes, isn't there?"

"Or... a number to call. But not very often. Someone might find out."

They had the other half of the conversation about the computer systems, and got around to taking off the rest of their clothes. Avon thought it was asurprisingly polished performance from someone who only got a dick in his mouth in alternate years.

The hair on Farren's chest was plentiful, soft, and lighter than the salt-and-pepper hair on his head. Avon held him and kissed the back of his neck as he slept. Avon even relaxed a little himself, until the communicator on the bedside table made the wine bottle tremble.

"Director?" the voice said. "I thought I should let you know, it's that Dr. Kayn, he contacted Space Command HQ. They're sending three pursuit ships after that big experimental ship he went to."

Avon, cold-awake, grabbed his teleport bracelet from the floor and held it upright, like a pyx. "I thought I could trust you to keep your word," he said.

"I can only apologise," Farren said, his eyes still closed. "I'm afraid there's absolutely nothing I can do for your friends now. It's against all the rules, but I am prepared to let you stay here. The Federation need never know that you're here on the station. You can work here in peace and safety."

Avon settled his tunic into place, smoothing down the toggles in front, and unsnared the back of one trouser leg from his boot.

"I shall need to go back to the _Liberator_ to collect a few things."

"Good," Farren said drowsily. "You've made the right decision."

"We'll do everything," Avon whispered, and kissed him goodbye.

Avon shook his head. How could someone so guileless have survived the infighting necessary to become the director of a space station?

4\.  XK-72 vanished.

"You know what to do," Blake said, walking away toward the sick-bay to share in the jubilation over Gan's recovery.

"Zen, Standard By Eight," Avon said, alone on the flight deck, still tasting his Judas kiss. Perhaps Kenneth didn't wake up, he thought agnostically. Perhaps he died with that smile still on his lips.

 _The net is widening. It used to be that you'd pay with your life to love me—which wouldn't seem to put any very large class at risk. But now, is all it takes to touch me? To want me? To look at me?_

And, just as "Experience" is the name that everybody gives to their mistakes, "Reason" was the name that Avon gave to his superstitions and protective practices. No obsessive-compulsive ever decreases the number of rituals, only enhances them.

5\.  The next day, Vila, dipping toast soldier into boiled egg, and then biscuit into cuppa, said thickly, "It's not fair, really... Everyone said Welcome Back! to Gan, well except for Avon, he was out here, and no one said Welcome Back! to Avon."

"Shut up, Vila," Avon said. Vila flinched; about ninety-six percent of the time when Avon said that he wasn't really angry.

"As I didn't know he'd gone, I didn't know a welcome was in order," Blake said in his bottle-of-aquavit-in-the-freezer voice.

"It shouldn't have been a surprise when I left, I _told_ you I would," Avon said. _And then I came back to die at your side, when in the event I should have died at his._

"That's just Pawn to King Four," Blake said. "We've seen it so often we don't pay any attention to it."

 _Well I got bloody tired of waiting for you to mate..._

"And clearly, from your reaction—your non-action—I wasn't needed or wanted."

"Oh, come on," Vila said. "We're so bleedin' short-handed that if they cloned _me_ Blake'd welcome it with open arms. 'Course you're needed. Nothing to do with you."

After the morning muster, Blake went to his sleep shift. The schedule had Vila assigned to help Avon track down some minor inconsistencies in the Component Order and Re-Supply System, which had a lot to do with looking inside cartons to see if the stuff in the carton corresponded to the program.

"Well, thanks for missing me, anyway."

"'Sokay. If you weren't here, I'd have to do the other ten percent of the physical stuff in here that you're deigning to do."

"If you want to de-bug the code once we get an idea of what's in here, then be my guest."

"First time I ever heard of a rat climbing back on a sinking ship. Lucky for you to come back, of course, but you couldn't know that first off. Why did you?"

"There was a music-hall song," Avon said. "'Father, dear Father, come home with me now.'" Blake is as addicted to placing himself in senseless dangers as the eponymous Father was to drink. I am in the position of the offspring sent from saloon to saloon to collect him."

"Don't fancy yourself," Vila said. "He did fine without you for thirty years and more, y'know. And if I had a kiddie like you, I wouldn't just take to drink. I'd get myself transported."

6\.  "What are you doing?" Blake asked.

"Trying to do some diagnostics, to see if I can prevent Zen from running off again at an inconvenient moment, or at least make the override conveniently available from the flight deck," Avon said, straightening up from an awkward angle with his head in one of the cabinets underneath the gun store.

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you."

"Zen's fate is rather more intimately tied up with the _Liberator's_ than mine is. And, as you seem to have a paradoxical attachment to the ship despite your continued efforts to put it in harm's way, I thought I'd have a look."

"We haven't seen much of your smiling face since your return."

 _What's that word that means both permit and punish? Sanction, that's it. Sanction._ "No one on XK-72 could have survived. And I can't help thinking that we brought it down, we brought that wrath down on their heads."

"The Federation did a nice thorough job. That's their hallmark. Well, you weren't there, what's it to you?"

"Did you meet the Director of the station when you were there kidnapping Kayn? Nice man. A bit too concerned with formulas and protocols, but it needn't have been a capital offence. I tricked with him."

"You didn't let the grass grow under your feet, did you? How long were you there, fifteen minutes?"

Avon shrugged. "I wanted the job."

"Well, don't ask me not to be disgusted," Blake said. "No emotion, no meaning."

"Oh, I don't know," Avon said. "Sometimes surprising things happen. Very quickly, delicately, like crêpe paper anemones. They don't last, the first rain leaches the colour out of them, but they have a certain fragile beauty."

"Don't go on about magic," Blake said. "I want reality."

Avon hung back, fighting his instinct to close the distance with Blake. "At any rate, you might have fancied him. You like older men."

" _What?_ "

"Everyone knows about you and Bran Foster."

This time it was Blake who closed the distance with alarming speed. "How dare you speak that way of something that was fine, and noble, and pure? We never touched each other. Not like that. Not like you're implying."

"Well, why not? It's not always opportunistic. The relation between a leader and his protégé can be a loving one."

At the bargain price of one blow (Avon expected Blake's anger to dissipate harmlessly after that) he would have purchased at least half-a-dozen barbed references to the thinness of the veneer of civilisation, redeemable in case of any conflict (or, worse, any harmony).

When the blow didn't land, Avon opened his eyes. Blake unclenched his fists from the front of Avon's jacket. "People like you always want to drag everything and everybody down to their level. Well, I'll tell you one thing for nothing. He was a _man_. You're a wretched, puling little brat and I don't fancy children, whatever they say."

As Blake stalked off, Avon shrugged his jacket back into place and smirked at the skill with which he had managed to push Blake away right where he could keep an eye on him.

> _Break up to make up, that's all we do  
>  First you love me, then you hate me,  
> It's a game for fools..._


End file.
